Central Queensland

Title: Bon Appetit
Medium: Painting
School: Marist College (Emerald)

Artist Statement:
Bon Apetit is a celebration of individuality, resilience and the importance of finding joy in solitude. Too often, happiness is framed as something dependent on others, this work reminds us that self-worth and contentment can be created from within. The painting incorporates interactive elements, inviting viewers to reach out and physically engage with its textured surfaces. This tactile quality reinforces the concept of connection, encouraging a direct, sensory experience that mirrors the process of connecting with oneself. The use of layered materials and embellishments symbolises the complexities of identity, while the interactive nature of the work disrupts the traditional separation between viewer and artwork. This work invites viewers to embrace their own company with confidence, recognising that strength is not found in seeking validation, but in being enough as you are.

Title: Sightlines
Medium: Installation
School: Yeppoon State High School

Artist Statement:
My name is Hannah, and I’m in Year 12 at Yeppoon State High School. I am blind and live with a brain tumour—but creativity opens a world beyond sight. Through touch, sound and texture, I shape feeling into form. I’m drawn to everyday materials—their textures, temperatures and the way they rest in my hands—as they help me express what words cannot. I find sanctuary in quiet spaces, where I can truly listen and let the noise of the world fall away. In silence, I find clarity. With my hands, I build meaning. In this installation, I’ve transformed sight into sound and colour into contour, inviting you to experience the world as I do—not through eyes, but through sensation. Creativity knows no limits but those we imagine.

Title: Folding
Medium: Painting
School: Mackay State High School

Artist Statement:
Folding is an oil on canvas painting exploring the fragility and selectivity of memory and nostalgia. Working from a personal context, I chose not my own core memory, but one belonging to my mother and grandparents. By removing the faces, I strip away the most identifiable and emotionally charged elements of the people, echoing how memories can fade, fragment and lose clarity over time. This absence invites viewers to focus on gesture, setting and detail, rather than identity, allowing space for their own interpretations. Painting a memory, I can never truly experience adds a layer of distance and longing, transforming the work into both a tribute and an act of imagination. The decision to use an image without faces challenges the conventions of personal photography, prompting questions about what is remembered, what is forgotten and why certain moments are preserved in our collective and personal histories.

Title: In Dreams I’m Almost Human
Medium: Film/electronic imaging
School: Emmaus College

Artist Statement:
Human nature, the psychological and behavioural traits found within all of humankind. Long debated as inherently ‘evil’, ‘disgusting’ and ‘grotesque’. In Dreams I’m Almost Human explores this concept through unsettling imagery and rigid movements reminiscent of ‘horrible bug’. Through its abstract and alternative digital collage approach, In Dreams I’m Almost Human demands your attention and pushes you to question your own inherent nature, the grotesqueness of your core and whether or not you too are a ‘Ungeheuren Ungeziefer’.

Title: Delirium Collection
Medium: Drawing
School: North Rockhampton State High School

Artist Statement:
This body of work delves into the daunting reality of schizophrenia throughout the ongoing life experience of my 35-year-old brother. Schizophrenia is unrelenting—it blurs the line between what is real, and what isn’t. This collection consists of 3 pieces which explore the toilsome concept of both the emotions and experiences that accompanies schizophrenia. The ink on my main work serves as the dull emotions clouding one’s mind during an episode, withholding a stark imagery of what schizophrenia looks and feels like. The floorboards below my brother’s gloomy figure have 3 hidden words on each timber slate, which embody the eerie voices he hears amidst an episode. The jagged, misplaced lines seen throughout each of my pieces represent his mindset—further exploring the factor of this mental illness, ‘Everything feels wrong’.

Title: Overwhelmed
Medium: Painting
School: Emmaus College

Artist Statement:
Knowledge is the understanding, interpretation and exploration of ideas, emotions and experiences which can be communicated to engage the audience. Overwhelmed explored the concept of the senses as a representation of the overlap of the 2 senses—sight and sound—and how these distinct experiences can collide and overlap. Capturing an overwhelming encounter, a deep conflict between the external and the internal experience. The visual and auditory elements intertwine to communicate a world of things being too bright, too loud, too much to process. Communicating my perception of the senses and challenging the audience's view of their own senses.

Title: Seamless Interaction
Medium: Sculpture
School: Emerald State High School

Artist Statement:
The 3​-piece, sculptural work, Seamless Interaction, explores the effect pollution has had on the Nogoa River, which passes through the township of Emerald in Central Queensland and the ecosystems the watercourse harbours. The animals featured: a Pied Cormorant, Saratoga and Red Claw are native to the region, and all rely on the river to survive and are painted onto alternate canvas’ which are themselves, examples of objects that pollute the river. The objects were initially painted a mid-tone brown to mimic the colour of the river water, reflecting the cohesion between the rubbish, the river and the animals. The work highlights the way the creatures have successfully adapted to their changing surroundings, and it prompts the audience to consider and be in awe of the flexibility and adaptability that animals have had to possess in order to exist in a world of thoughtless humans.

Title: Held by Two Worlds
Medium: Painting
School: Lighthouse Christian School (Norman Gardens)

Artist Statement:
Cultural identity is layered. It is shaped by memory, distance and environment. As a Filipino girl raised in Australia, I often find myself caught between 2 worlds: one I live in, and one I carry within me. This painting explores the emotional tension between my 2 cultures. The figure, draped in a Tinikiu-patterned shawl, holds a rosary and a portrait, reflecting her connection to religion, culture and family. Her eyes are closed, symbolising her retreat from the external world as she turns inward, reflecting on the emotional weight of her cultural displacement. Her bedroom, surrounded with familiar objects of her Filipino world, reflects the life I carry within, while the external Australian view beyond the window represents the unfamiliarity of the new cultural environment. The window acts as a metaphorical threshold, symbolising the separation and the possibility of connection between the 2 distinct worlds.

Title: A Remnant of Vitality
Medium: Artist's Book
School: Whitsunday Anglican School

Artist Statement:
A Remnant of Vitality explores my observations of water for a variety of its innate properties, specifically its self-renewing abilities. My contemporary elaboration upon this concept involves the transformation of 2 flat images into a tangible representation of personal experience; as with drought, evidence of flora and fauna will be limited to the succinct remnants of timber and bone. And as per the cylindrical form my piece takes, I would seek to invite the audience to circle the artwork to perceive it from all viewing angles; where they may ultimately see that from all viewing perspectives, time remains linear, with its effects being fully foreseeable.

Title: Dance for Our Future
Medium: Painting
School: Emmaus College

Artist Statement:
Dance for Our Future communicates the importance of dance for Indigenous culture. As our ancestors passed down stories and rules to us through dance. The sea of the artwork was created through dance, and the certain marks in the ocean show the movements of the dancers. This artwork communicates the importance of the legacy of dance, as our culture was taken from country, stripped from our dance and language. By dancing on this artwork, on our country, we show everyone that even though we were stopped, we still dance to this day, dancing for our future, leaving our mark in the country with every move. Our dance holds stories and memories from our ancestors and is crucial for our culture’s future. If you had the chance, would you dance for the future of your culture? Well, we are, and we always will, forever loud and proud.

Title: Veiled Perfection
Medium: Mixed Media
School: Holy Spirit College (Mount Pleasant)

Artist Statement:
This body of work powerfully encapsulates the immense pressure that women and girls face to achieve an idealised standard of perfection. The first artwork represents the more personal side to the issue. The wild chaotic background of the waves represents the inner turmoil and pressure causing women to break, which is symbolised by the mannequin seen with waves crashing through. The mannequin is printed to contrast with the wild background, representing how perfect and still they want us to remain even under all the torment society puts us through. The wings symbolise freedom, individuality and purity and the chains which are dragging them deeper to the cage show the restriction of uniqueness.

Title: Ghost of the canopy
Medium: Installation
School: Whitsunday Anglican School

Artist Statement:
Ghost of the Canopy represents the echoes of logged red cedar trees that have been extracted and processed for human use. Through researching and listening to locals with a long historical connection to Eungella National Park, I am profoundly aware of our disconnect with the natural environment. Logging trees that are hundreds of years old can never truly be remedied. Prized for its timber, this red cedar tree inspired installation is a human construct; distorted by man-made materials processed from the earth such as metal and glass. Our irreversible effect on nature confronts the viewer as light and the sounds of rustling leaves shut off when they approach the beautifully crafted glass and copper foliage. These heavily processed leaves and branches present a future alternative, that natural environments will forever be tarnished, should we not learn from past mistakes and adopt an alternate view, to grow alongside nature instead.